Saturday, September 22, 2012

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Blocks - we've all had em' at some point - inability to push past a certain point of exertion that you know is short of max, a bout with irrational fear (not to be confused with gut instinct), or times when the brain checks out for a bit at work, etc..... but this one is pretty funny. I can put Annie on the face of a vertical wall and she's fine, even if she's hanging on by her fingertips. Stepping over the edge to rappel a cliff? Maybe timid on occasion, but she'll walk herself over it without coercion. Leave the ground for a few seconds with a nice soft landing in a pool of water at the bottom - frozen stiff. Training to break through this mental/physical block started right when we got back and has gone great - she's already leaping off curbs.

Speaking of jumping - Annie and I met Jeb Corliss, a guy who's jumped off a few things himself, at the OR show last month. Got to talking about the South Africa stunt for a bit... I asked him to pull his pant legs up, and it's safe to say that Annie won't be graduating to a squirrel suit after a first hand look at what may be the most impressive collection of scars I've ever seen on anyone who wasn't a burn victim. Google him if you haven't already seen it.

Enjoy the footage of me and some cohorts heckling Annie while her brain tries to sort through the quandary of knowing these are perfectly safe jumps, pleasurable even, yet not being able to make her feet let go of the ground.

Friday, July 27, 2012

I was lobbying to sell our entry's. I've done this race, I know it takes significant fitness to do it well, and knew I was coming into it in much worse shape than last year, which was already a fairly low marker.
Annie - the wunderkid, was lobbying to do the race, and was recruiting my friends to heckle me into it. She hadn't done it with me last year, so her naivete can be forgiven, she didn't know what she'd drug us into. Short story, she was persuasive, I succumbed, and we were at the start line come Saturday morning - Annie being anxious to do the race, me being anxious to get it over with and get to our next stop, Yosemite. I really wasn't a total sourpuss about it, I'd done a few long rides with a good amount of climbing, and felt ok on one of them, meaning there was at least a chance of the legs working as well on this day, and it wouldn't be a total mess.

Long story short - by rest area 1 (for some they were aid stations, for purposes of recapping my day we'll call them rest areas), I was pretty certain the legs weren't going to be better than they really were, and I thought riding with Annie would be the best use of the rest of the day. She'd started several minutes behind and it wasn't long before she arrived - she looked phenomenal. Aided by a screenshot of Magic Mike that I'd covertly taped to her top tube the night before the race, she was blitzing the first climb, and feeling great doing it. She grabbed a quick bottle, and off we went.... and then...within about 30 seconds..... she dropped me. The rest of the story is on the video.... it ended up being a cool day, we didn't do it fast, but we got to do a big chunk of it together which was the clear highlight. As far as races go, Burke and his gang knocked it out of the park again.... fantastic production by the Crusher folks, best volunteer staff around, including and maybe highlighted by Burke's family at the rest area just prior to the KOM where we probably spent too much time joking and laughing, but made for one of our favorite parts of the day.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Here's the video from the Maui trip. Didn't do a short version for blog visitors so you get the full family archive edit which is a little long. The dolphins are at the end, around minute 16 or so if your wanting the main highlight. Very fortunate morning at La Perouse Bay where we stopped to find people with binoculars watching dolphins about 3/4 mile out. We grabbed our fins and masks and headed out, only to find nothing once we got to where we thought we needed to be. We'd started back when they popped back up - about 14 total that stayed in smaller groups of 3 or 4. It was pretty surreal being out in the open water with them, they stayed around for about 15 minutes without ever acting like they were very interested in our being there, but always keeping about a 10-15 foot space between us. We were mesmerized.

Our soundtrack while on the trip was Xavier Rudd, so his music naturally made it's way onto the video. You're welcome if you're not already familiar with his stuff - exceptional.

Some brief color commentary on a few highlights and the vid:

We got into Maui around 9:30 pm, and rather than drive over to Lahaina and then back the next morning, we just headed straight up to Haleakala to catch the sunrise. We went about 2/3rds the way up the volcano, pulled over next to some cattle, and dirtbagged it in the car to sleep for the night. In the a.m. we were fortunate to get the cloud carpet below the peak that makes for quite a spectacle when the sun makes it's way up the horizon - can't do it justice trying to describe it so won't, nor does the video capture it, but totally unique from anything we've ever seen.

Stopped for a quick hike/run through the Redwood forest on the way down - we were needing something invigorating after the flight out and the early morning, and this did the trick nicely. The Redwoods there were relatively young, so big, but not huge. Cool trail, several transitions from alpine, to rain forest, even some real dry, high desert type terrain on the northern edge.

We had dinner that night with Earl and Sandy. Got a table next to the ocean with a fortunate view of some whales jumping out of the water a ways out - that was a first for both Annie and I. Wasn't a close up view - but amazing none the less to a couple of kids from Utah.

We went pretty hard the rest of the trip - tried to put a little bit of most of it on the video. We rented some bikes and made an attempt at going from sea level to the 10,000 ft summit of Haleakala, but hit cold and weather a little past 6,500 ft' that we weren't prepared for, so abandoned and rode back down. Blow holes, snorkeling, swim approach bouldering, waterfalls, mountain/rain forest hikes, caves and lava tubes, Hana, paddleboarding and surfing, could have used one more day to relax - we came home tired. But truth be told, that's how we like it.

One of our favorite trips ever.

Huge thanks to a couple of our favorite friends - Earl and Sandy, who provided their sweet digs to serve as base camp, thank you again, we absolutely loved it!